[...]... software problems The Arduino, and the open hardware movement that has grown up with it and to a certain extent around it, is enabling a generation of high-tech tinkers to prototype new ideas with fairly minimal hardware knowledge The Arduino While there are many other microcontroller platforms available, for a newcomer to physical computing, the simplest to work with is probably the Arduino (see Figure... connection or with an external power supply if you want to detach the board from your Mac once you’ve programmed it To keep things short, this tutorial will assume you’re using a recent Arduino board such as the Arduino Uno, Duemilanove, or Diecimila However, if you’re working with an older board, or one of the many Arduino- compatible clones, it’s likely that little needs to be changed See http:/ /arduino. cc/en/Main/Hardware... although unlike with the newer Uno board, you will be required to install a driver so that your Mac can see the board correctly Installing the Software Download the latest version of the development environment from the Arduino. cc website The latest version of the Arduino development environment is available at http:/ /arduino. cc/en/Main/Software At the time of this writing, it was Arduino 022 The Arduino |... double-click on the Arduino. app application icon to start the IDE You should see something that looks a lot like Figure 1-2 Figure 1-2 The development environment 4 | Chapter 1: Introduction to the Arduino Connecting to the Board Connect the Arduino to your Mac with an appropriate USB cable In the case of an Arduino Uno, Duemilanove, or Diecimila, you’ll need a USB-A (Mac) to USB-B (Arduino) cable, the... this book with just the bare Arduino board, a USB cable, an LED, and the Redpark Serial Cable and RS-232 to TTL serial converter Summary | 13 CHAPTER 2 Connecting the iPhone to the Arduino The arrival of the External Accessory framework with iOS 3 was seen, initially at least, as having the potential to open the iOS platform up to a host of external accessories and additional sensors Sadly, little of the... http:/ /arduino. cc/en/Main/Hardware for links to the getting started guides for various other boards 2 | Chapter 1: Introduction to the Arduino Powering the Board The Arduino Uno can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply Unlike with previous generations of the Arduino, the power source is selected automatically If you’re using an earlier model, you will have to manually change between... the Arduino was designed from the ground up to be simple for newcomers The current revision of the Arduino board is known as the Arduino Uno This board is based on the ATmega328 microcontroller It has fourteen digital input/output pins, six of which can be used as Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) outputs, along with six more analog input pins See Table 1-1 Table 1-1 Technical specifications of the Arduino. .. Uno board Arduino Uno Microcontroller ATmega328 Operating Voltage 5V Input Voltage (recommended) 7–12 V Input Voltage (limits) 6–20 V Digital I/O Pins 14 (6 provide PWM) 1 Figure 1-1 The Arduino Uno board with the ATmega328 microcontroller Arduino Uno Analog Input Pins 6 DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mA DC Current for 3.3 V Pin 50 mA Flash Memory 32 KB SRAM 2 KB EEPROM 1 KB Clock Speed 16 MHz The Arduino. .. along with the LED we inserted into pin 13 One second on, one second off If you see that, congratulations, you’ve just successfully got the hardware equivalent to “Hello World” to compile and run on the Arduino board 10 | Chapter 1: Introduction to the Arduino Making a Serial Connection Now that we’ve seen how a basic Arduino sketch works, let’s move on to sending and receiving data from the Arduino. .. Figure 1-8 The Arduino says “Hello World” in the serial console 12 | Chapter 1: Introduction to the Arduino Summary In this chapter we’ve learned how to use the microcontroller to blink an LED, and then how to get messages from, and send messages to, the board from our Mac While we will be dealing with sensors later, you can actually work through a fair number of the code examples in this book with just .